Korean Job Discussion Forums

[jeffkim1972]

Imagine the analogy, in English, you can easily ask someone over the phone to spell something if you are not sure of the pronunciation, there is no ambiguity.

In Hangul, it is quite the opposite. The only "characters" that have names are

ㄱ, ㄷ, ㄴ, etc.

But ㅏ, ㅓ , ㅗ, ㅢ, ㅘ, etc don't have names, well, they do, but their names are their sounds.

So if you ask someone (verbally) how to spell a Korean word, you have to know the exact sounds of those characters. Which is sort of using the word you're trying to define in the definition.

But if anyone who's studied Korean longer can come up with a system of spelling Korean (verbally, not demonstratively), please let us know.

[heydelores]

If there is confusion, you can give a clear example of a word that the letter is in. We do that in English sometimes when letters have similar-sounding names. When I'm spelling my name, I might clarfify "D as in dog" so that I don't end up heybelores.

[Atavistic]

That's what I do, too.

I don't really think the vowels are all that hard. I still have a time with 어/아 but when saying them INDIVIDUALLY they're not that hard.

Spelling the rest of the vowels is pretty clear.

When I get 에/애 or 얘/예 I ask for another word. "Like 애 in 태권도 or 에 in 주세요?" (Well, that's actually a bad example because I just have them say 어 이 or 아이 but you get the idea....)

Also, English is a pain in the ass over the phone. b, c, d, e, g, p, t, v, z (and maybe some other I missed) all end with an "ee" sound. b/p/d are a real pain.

[jeffkim1972]

The world's most scientific language doens't have a mechanism for spelling. No wonder there are no spelling bees in Korea.

Not one Korean even understood the problem i was trying to point out.

They just tell me Korean is very scientific.

I'm sure not about Japanes or Chinese, how they attack spelling, but i'd be interested in learning how.

And because the spelling is really the same as pronunciation, koreans don't understand you unless you speak perfectly.

If you ask someone over the phone how to spell 광주 , i think you'd get a big mess.

You only need to learn the alphabet in English to learn how to spell. Hangul, which supposedly takes a day to learn, isn't as easy or there is no known art or science of spelling in Hangul.

This is about as imprecise as their addressing system. How do you say "upgrade" in Korean? And please don't tell me 어브그래드.

Did i tell you how much i hate the food here also?

[Pak Yu Man]

[tomato]

기역, 니은, 디귿, 리을, 미음, 비읍, 시읏, 이응, 지읒, 치읓, 키읔, 티읕, 피읖, 히읗

That's from page 40 of Elementary Korean by Ross King & Jae-Hoon Yeon.
Since those letter names are so hard to find,
I have indexed that page number on the inside front cover.

[Drew345]

Last month I had one of those Korean rubber stamps made with my name. A Korean friend called the shop and ordered for me, and give them my name. My name is 4 Korean "syllables". I heard my friend repeating each of the 4 syllable over and over to get the shop to spell it correctly. My name is not Korean, but there is a standard Korean spelling and pronunciation for my name. My friend was using the proper perfect pronunciation for each of the 4 Korean syllables. But when we got to the shop, sure enough, one of the syllables was misspelled (different from standard and different from what friend had "pronounced"), so we had to do it all again. Made me wonder the same thing as the OP, why is there no way to "spell" a word to somebody.
The problem comes in those 3 or 4 "vowel pairs" that all sound like "way".

[ernie]

koreans always get confused about the "scientific" nature of their language... it's the LETTERS that are scientific, NOT the spelling, language, grammar, or pronunciation... it sucks to have to correct koreans about this...

[CentralCali]

[tomato]

I wondered why they had street addresses but didn't use them for mailing addresses.
Now I know!
Because that would increase their indebtedness to the Japanese and hurt their pride!

Regardless of what I say about the Mormon religion, they must have a heck of a good training program for the Korean language and Korean culture.
I have jokingly remarked that I was going to fake a conversion to Mormonism so I could go through their training program.
Except that I might not qualify. Is there an age limit for Mormon missionaries?

[CentralCali]

Yep. For single missionaries, there's an upper age limit. For older missionaries, there's a lower age limit and the calling is for a husband and wife together.

The language training program begins in the Missionary Training Center and continues on a daily basis in the mission field. The foreign missionaries are required to study Korean every day and the Korean missionaries are required to study English every day. They're tested at regular intervals and, if they don't make satisfactory progress, they get a counseling session with the mission hierarchy. I knew one missionary back in 2005 who was from Switzerland. He had to study both Korean and English while here.

In addition to all that, one must be "living the Gospel" to go on a mission. That includes a few things: tithing, living the law of chastity, and not consuming booze, tobacco, tea, and coffee.

"Faking a conversion" to go on a mission is an expensive fake.

Back to the addressing thing: I don't remember when it's supposed to happen, but the government has everyone putting up those western-style addresses because they're going to have to start using them sometime.

[tomato]

[CentralCali]

Not at all.

But ask me about the term Winter Mormon. But let's do that in a different thread.